


I Prefer Your Love

by Morpheus626



Category: Saints Row
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A sort of sequel to Carry On. Ellis dealing with no Johnny, and not really dealing at all, but god forbid anyone tell him that.Bringing part of my synopsis from my post on Tumblr for this fic: This is written pre-acquisition of Matt Miller in SR3 (aka about where I am in my current playthrough lol) but I plan to feature him in other fics with Boss Ellis!Major TW for suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts via gang violence, and definitely PTSD that, for my boss, is dangerously undiagnosed (though to be fair, I think we could safely say that’s a dx for all the Saints.)
Relationships: Male Boss (Saints Row)/Johnny Gat
Kudos: 7





	I Prefer Your Love

**Author's Note:**

> Also hey, wanna cry while reading this? Here’s the two songs I had most on repeat while writing this that by the end had me tearing up in how they relate to the fic and Ellis’ and Johnny’s relationship (also the first one is where I got the fic title from): https://open.spotify.com/track/0Snb87Z4Zdn6YFMicWA7gx?si=i_mPPaSlTJq_9LIUdsHw6A and https://open.spotify.com/track/0pY9xoiH9hNo166spIpQWt?si=HK5w7Y3YTNOuIFZv8RKxLw

His phone goes off mid-fire-fight, and he resists the urge to be too upset. When it rains it pours, and this pouring isn’t anything new. 

“Where the fuck are you?” 

“Gosh, the sound of gunfire might give you a hint,” Ellis replies with a deep sigh as he swings around to take out another Decker. “Why?”

“No! I can hear you’re fighting, but where _exactly_ are you?” 

“By Nobody Loves Me, _where_ are you?” he sasses back. “I’m busy.” 

“Oh my god. We’ve been terrified, no one could find you last night-” 

“Shaundi, can this wait?” he tries to sound sympathetic, but there’s none right now. “You guys didn’t even call me, or text. I checked my phone. It can’t have been that emergent.” 

The line goes dead, and he focuses back on the fight. There are more Deckers than he expected, and he’s starting to notice the lightheaded sensation of blood loss and bullet wounds now, but so what? 

Johnny would be proud of that, if he went down in a hail of bullets. 

Before he can take out the latest Decker, a kid who looks too young to be out without his parents, let alone in a gang, he’s up and in the air.

“Oleg, put me the fuck down. I’m ending this.” 

“They will end you my friend, if you stay. You can end things another day. For now, we need to get you to the hospital.” 

“I’m fine!” his struggling means nothing to Oleg, not even as the butts of his dual-wielded pistols hit the man’s massive fists. “Put me the fuck down, now! That’s a goddamn order!” 

But he’s in the back of a truck, still held gently by Oleg, who ignores his fussing, his spitting of literal blood, and it’s then that he starts to realize it’s rather hard not to choke on it. 

“Stop talking,” Oleg finally says softly, and that’s the last thing he hears.

**

The light is so bright, but he can see purple. Purple is good, if he could feel it, he’d know the texture, Johnny’s usual favorite jacket, the one he’d lend to Ellis whenever he got cold, the one he loved having him wear when they fucked, just the jacket and nothing else, and-

“Pierce?” 

“Well goddamn. Sound more disappointed, why don’t you,” Pierce scolds him. His head is in Pierce’s lap. Why is he laying in Pierce’s lap?

Sitting up, especially quickly, is a terrible choice as it turns out, and he vomits into the bucket near the couch as he flops back down. 

“Thankfully, I didn’t wear a nice suit today,” Pierce remarks wryly. “How you feelin’?” 

“Like shit. But I felt like that before getting shot.” 

“Yeah, but you got shot a lot. Like, enough that you shouldn’t be here. And you probably shouldn’t be here, in HQ right now, but we know you got your thing about hospitals, not wanting to wake up in ‘em, so we convinced the doctor to let you recover here. He’ll be coming by to check on you-” 

The tears come before he can stop them. “Why did you do this?” 

“The hell are you talking about?” Shaundi’s voice from behind the couch. “Do what? Save your ass?” 

“I was so close to him,” Ellis whimpers. “I could taste it, in between the blood and the gun powder. I was almost with him again.” 

They go silent except for a sharp intake of breath from Pierce. “Boss-” 

“I was almost with him again!” he’s screaming and it hurts his chest, his lungs, but nothing hurts more than his heart right now. “And you took me away from him! How fucking selfish of you all-” 

“Selfish?” Shaundi interrupts, with a shocked scoff. “Excuse me?” 

He stands, but it hurts so bad he could pass out, but he fights off the darkness threatening to encroach on the corners of his vision, but he can’t stop moving now. “You fucking heard me. You took me away from my husband!” 

“No one took you away from Johnny!” Shaundi’s voice is sharp in his ears, like a knife in his side. “Loren took Johnny away from us! You were just out there trying to get yourself killed, like you have a death wish or someth-” 

She interrupts herself with a gasp, a hand flies to her mouth. 

“Oh, don’t look so fucking surprised,” Ellis spits. “And I was _this close_ to making it. I was going to see him again. Hold him again. Kiss him again, apologize for letting him die. And you fucks took that away from me.” 

He ignores the footsteps following him as he stumbles out the backdoor of the living room to the pool area, around the slippery flooring to the helipad. One of their smaller planes is still there, and there’s a haze from the narcotic pain pills they must have given him at the hospital, but it isn’t the first time he’s flown while high. 

But it might be the last, if he does this right. 

“Get him out of that!” and he’s never heard Kinzie be that loud so far. She could go far in the Saints, if she could yell that authoritatively more often. She’ll have to, maybe, once this is finally done. She’d be a good second hand to Shaundi, if Shaundi steps up and takes over like he hopes she will. 

In any case, it’s too late as he takes off, and pays sparing attention to the controls as he flies, at times only resting his knees on the controls, the plane bobbing and weaving up and down and entirely too close to buildings. 

It’s all quite funny, until a sharp clearing of the breath in the passenger seat. 

“The fuck are you doing?” 

Ellis shrugs, and reaches over for Johnny’s hand, but feels nothing. “I’m going to find you. I can do it.” 

Johnny shakes his head. “No, you can’t, and no you aren’t. I’m not even real right now, you know that. I know you do. You’re only seeing me because you want to, because you need help, and for some godforsaken reason, you only want it from me, and refuse to let anyone else in.” 

“Why would you say something so cruel,” he pouts as he nudges the controls at random, enjoying the turbulence. “I just want to be with you again. You wanted to be with Aisha, and you are now. I miss you both, so why can’t I come be with you?” 

“I could tell you it’s just because they need you,” Johnny replies softly as he takes off his sunglasses, and the tears come again as Ellis sees his eyes, the most gorgeous he’s ever been lucky enough to look into. “Or just because it isn’t your time yet. And those two things are true, by the way.” 

“Stop,” Ellis begs him, a whisper. 

“Go land on the island,” Johnny instructs.

Below them, the island where the plane Johnny had been on, had died on, had crashed. 

“I don’t want to land. I want to crash. I can be done, with all of this,” he weeps. “Don’t you want to see me again? Don’t you miss me?” 

There are tears in Johnny’s eyes now too. “Of course I do. I love you. But this isn’t the way, I promise. I know you can’t understand it right now, but you will see me again, just not the way you’re thinking or how you’d expect. Don’t do this.” 

He lands, admittedly difficult on the small and bumpy island, but he manages. As soon as they’re safely stopped, he clambers into the passenger seat, into what should be Johnny’s lap, he can see it, but he can’t feel it as he sits there, and the lack of sensation is worse than being shot with any bullet. 

He sobs, and wishes for Johnny’s arms around him, even as he hears the soft and sweet words in Johnny’s voice, urging him to just listen, for once. “Get on the boat when they get here. Take a break, for a few weeks. Let them handle shit. Come back to me, to yourself. I know how shit gets for you, how bad it gets in your head, how hard this is, but it isn’t worth it. I need you to stay here with them. We’ll be together again, I promise.” 

It’s nearly dark by the time the rest of the Saints arrive, and he lets Shaundi, her make-up running down her face, breath hitching as she cries, help him out of the plane. Pierce, sniffling, is the one who keeps him upright when he slips on the edge of the boat, and it’s Kinzie who helps him settle on the backseat of it. 

“Oleg would have sank it,” she tries to giggle, but her eyes are red and tired looking, and it falls flat as he leans against her. “Otherwise he’d be here. But he’s back at HQ, waiting to help get you into your room.” 

“That sounds nice,” and he means it to sound that way genuinely, but he can hear how flat his voice is. Nothing he does can make it sound better, and he isn’t sure it matters anyway. 

He doesn’t hear Johnny again until he’s back at home, after being gently washed by Oleg of all people, who tells him a tale of how he used to work as a medic for some friends of his who got in bad situations of varying sorts, and they always requested him for sponge baths while horribly injured. “Apparently, my hands are very gentle. It is a nice thing to hear, don’t you think?” 

He can’t respond, and doesn’t try to until he’s alone, and Johnny is back too. 

“You can’t do this again.” 

“Then what do I do?” 

“You keep fighting. You keep working. You stop pretending that you’re just magically okay, and not hurting. You let them in. You let them help. And by the time you get back to me, we’ll both be doing better.” 

He can’t stop the tears again, even though it hurts his eyes to cry again, so sore and dry from the weeping he’s already done for the day. “I’m not going to hear from you again after this, am I?” 

He swears, he’s certain, he can feel Johnny’s lips on his for just a second. “No. But you will get me back. Did you really think I’d leave you alone forever? Didn’t we both say we wouldn’t do that to each other?” 

He nods, and then Johnny is gone, and the bedroom is entirely too big and quiet. 

And it’ll be like that for a long time, he knows that now. But a person can get used to anything, so long as it’s temporary. 

And he can do it, for Johnny. 

Johnny would be proud of that, of him keeping on, even when everything inside of him is screaming at him to stop.

Johnny would be proud, and he’ll live to see him be proud, if it’s the last thing he does. 


End file.
